WHO AM I?
Knowing ourselves, what we feel, and how we respond in various situations empowers us to manage ourselves and find that balance in what we do and say when communicating and interacting with others. Self-awareness precedes self-management, social awareness and relationship management and is the building blocks of emotional intelligence and confident communication.
When we are self-aware, we recognise and understand our emotions and how they affect our actions. Daniel Goleman, the father of emotional intelligence, explains that when we are emotionally self-aware, we can identify what we are feeling and why. We have an understanding of how others perceive us, recognise our strengths and the challenges that influence our level of self-confidence. Self-awareness begins with having the intention of acknowledging what we are feeling inside and what’s going on for us. If we don’t know this, then how can we manage ourselves, relate to other people and recognise how we are affecting them.
Recognising how we are feeling and how we affect others sounds easy, but we all have ‘blind spots’ when it comes to seeing ourselves as others see us. For example, we may think that we are friendly and smile when meeting others but from another’s perspective, how we look is anything but friendly. This has been the case in several workshops that I have run on emotional intelligence. Participants are asked if they are a ‘smiley person’. It is interesting that some people state very matter of factly with a non-smiling face that, “Yes! I’m very friendly, and I smile all the time!”. Looking at them I’m not sure that I agree. It’s interesting though that they have that perception – it’s their blind spot.
SELF-AWARENESS is the building block of emotional intelligence and confident communication.